Air America's ABC Blacklist: The Real Story [View All]

[marmar]

Published on Friday, November 3, 2006 by CommonDreams.org
Air America’s ABC Blacklist: The Real Story
by Josh Silver and Robert W. McChesney

This week we learned that some 90 major corporations demanded that their ads be pulled from radio stations that run Air America programming, demonstrating the fundamental challenge facing everyone working to promote critical journalism and a vibrant free press.

First off, let's clarify why this is taking place: The crime isn’t that Air America is partisan. All or most of these firms advertise on politically conservative talk radio programs and/or stations. And the crime isn’t even being “liberal.” Some of these advertisers have moderate or liberal executives who donate to Democratic candidates and are far from rabid conservatives.

So what is the problem? While “liberal” Air America clearly favors big D Democrats, unlike virtually all other programming on commercial radio and television, it gives airtime to reports that are critical of corporations and the powerful politicians they keep in Washington.

This is the heart of the problem: Air America commits a crime called journalism. Almost none of the so-called conservative radio shows or networks do any semblance of actual reporting. They merely pontificate -- repeating talking points that seem to be emailed straight from Karl Rove's laptop.

Air America does its share of pontificating as well, and we leave it to others to compare its integrity to that of Limbaugh and Hannity. But we can say that Air America journalism occasionally focuses on corporate malfeasance. It examines closely the deeply corrupt relationship between corporate power and government officials.

This brand of journalism is found almost nowhere else on the commercial dial. It is brandished as “liberal” because it does not practice journalism as stenography to those in power. This is the same reason that Bill Moyers doesn’t have any of these 90 firms lining up to underwrite his PBS reporting.

So what should we learn from this episode?

1) Commercial media are highly concentrated and corporate advertisers have massive budgets, giving their programming decisions profound implications. According to its own Web site, ABC Radio has more than 4,400 affiliate radio stations reaching nearly 105 million people nationwide. Monopoly media power translates into significant political power and that is dangerous. This is a big deal. ........

The complete article is at: http://www.commondreams.org/views06/1103-24.htm